After being ousted as head of Viacom, Tom Freston wants to collect his thoughts before weighing other job offers. The man who built MTV Networks into a global powerhouse is not ready to retire at age
60. "I want to get back in," Freston told the newspaper. "I'm open to anything." There should be plenty of options: Acquaintances and rivals alike say he isn't a man known for "vindictive tantrums,"
and his reputation as a good manager who knows the youth market could give him an edge in the Internet era. "Tom has built a larger reserve of goodwill than any businessperson I can think of," says
Graydon Carter, editor of
Vanity Fair. "Tom's second act will be bigger than his first." But scores of media titans, including his predecessors at Viacom, have been forced out only to fade from
view or step into smaller spots. "It's a really difficult transition," says Bill Simon, a senior executive at Los Angeles-based Korn/Ferry International, an executive-recruiting organization. "There's
only a handful of executives who have gone on to bigger things once they've lost a big job."
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